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Your morning adorable: Endangered Asian lion cubs get a checkup at German zoo

July 13, 2010 | 11:44
am

The birth of two Asian lion cubs at Germany's Magdeburg Zoo in May was big news for their species, which is considered critically endangered.

The Magdeburg Zoo is one of a small number of German zoos that's working to revitalize the species. Asian lions, the only type of lions that live outside of Africa, once occupied a large swath of territory ranging from India to the Middle East. Less than 300 are believed to remain in the wild, and they live only in a tiny pocket of territory in India's Gir Forest.

The cubs, which haven't yet been named, are the fourth and fifth Asian lion cubs to be born at the zoo. Triplet Asian lions were born there in 2007 and moved to the Rotterdam Zoo last year. The new cubs received a checkup Tuesday morning at the zoo, during which they were briefly separated from their mother while they were examined by a veterinarian, vaccinated and microchipped.